Christian Vazquez Remains Most Important Piece In Turning Red Sox Around
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- The Red Sox front office and baseball operations department often find themselves on the receiving end of plenty of criticism these days, and considering they're coming off back-to-back last place finishes, it's been warranted. Yet if there's one area in which the team deserves full credit, it's in acting swiftly and decisively at the catcher position early in this young season.
The decision to call up Christian Vazquez and correspondingly send Blake Swihart to Triple-A was one that ruffled many feathers. After all, Swihart exceeded all expectations at the plate last year, when he put up .274/.319/.392 numbers as a 23-year-old who wasn't supposed to be in the big leagues in 2015. And this year, he was off to a decent start, hitting .278 with a .391 on-base percentage. Considering that an offensively threatening catcher has largely become a thing of the past in MLB, sending him to the minors was not necessarily a popular move.
But it was, unequivocally, the right one.
Rarely can a catcher's impact behind the plate be so noticeable as it has been with Vazquez in less than two weeks with the team. His framing work is, quite simply, some of the best in the sport. And while there's no way to necessarily quantify the impact of his habit of making snap throws to first (and occasionally third) base, he is without a doubt a major deterrent in opposing teams' plans on the base paths. (In 71 innings behind the plate, opponents have attempted just two steals thus far. By contrast, four runners attempted to steal on Swihart in just 52 innings behind the plate.)
Pitching with the benefit of getting some extra strikes, and with the relief of having to worry much less about base runners, the insertion of Vazquez has been paying instant and obvious dividends for the pitching staff.
With the obvious caveat that the sample sizes are tiny, here's a look at how Red Sox pitchers have fared in 2016 with Swihart behind the plate compared to how they've pitched with Vazquez catching. The exception -- ace David Price -- stands out as an exception, but the rest of the numbers are staggering:
Rick Porcello
To Swihart: 6 IP, 6.00 ERA, 7.00 SO/BB
To Vazquez: 19.2 IP, 2.75 ERA, 5.75 SO/BB
Clay Buchholz
To Swihart: 9 IP, 10.00 ERA, 1.50 SO/BB
To Vazquez: 12.1 IP, 3.65 ERA, 2.67 SO/BB
David Price
To Swihart: 11 IP, 5.73 ERA, 4.50 SO/BB
To Vazquez: 18.2 IP, 5.79 ERA, 7.00 SO/BB
(Joe Kelly, who's on the DL, has not yet pitched to Vazquez, while Steven Wright will likely spend most of his time pitching to Ryan Hanigan.)
Again, the sample sizes (especially pitching to Swihart) are small, but the numbers do validate the opinion formed from watching Vazquez this past week as well as watching him back in 2014. The impact is undeniable and easy to see, and it's why the spring training injury to Vazquez last year was one that helped doom the 2015 season for the Red Sox.
Obviously, he could not have single-handedly turned a 78-win team into a playoff contender, but he could have helped a starting staff that ranked third-worst in the AL in ERA.
It's also not as if placing Vazquez behind the plate is a magic elixir. After all, Vazquez was catching Price last week when the lefty couldn't get through four innings against the light-hitting Tampa Bay Rays. In general, a catcher can only do so much if a pitcher is struggling with command. A 93 mph cutter that splits the plate at the belt is going to get hammered, no matter whose mitt is held open a few inches away. But it's more about what Vazquez does in totality that stands out.
This clip from 2014 is indicative of the kind of mind Vazquez possesses. As a 23-year-old rookie starting just his 24th big league game, he had the presence of mind to at least try to get Mike Trout's wheels turning by tapping the dirt on the inside edge before setting up down and away.
https://vine.co/v/M3TB5KMKPqQ
It's subtle, but it's just one of the many things he does that's enjoyable to watch on a pitch-by-pitch basis.
There are also the much less-subtle occasions, like this week in Atlanta when he managed to receive a pitch that skipped in the dirt on the edge of the plate, with his momentum going the other way ...
... and turn it into a caught stealing.
It wasn't Vazquez's best throw, but the ability to get that release after that pitch is a rare skill. So is being able to fire a bullet to first in your first big league game back from Tommy John surgery.
Clearly, Vazquez has shown no limitations or setbacks after the surgery from where he was last year ...
... or in 2014.
You don't often see anyone get picked off so badly at first base.
The work extends beyond the physical manifestations of his abilities, too. His intensity is obvious, both behind the plate as well as at the plate and on the base paths. Even at his young age, he demands the respect of the pitching staff, with The Boston Globe's Peter Abraham noting last week that Vazquez "occasionally refuses to allow pitchers to shake him off, shaking his head back at them and demanding they throw the pitch he called."
For a pitching staff that may not have an alpha personality among them, the low-on-experience but highly confident Vazquez appears to be comfortable as the leader.
The exact impact of his work this year will be hard to characterize with any one number, whether it be ERA, strikeouts, wins, or anything else. But his work in his first two weeks in the majors since September 2014 shows that if the team is going to get consistent starting pitching and limit run-scoring opportunities from opponents, he's the right person to be right in the thick of it day in and day out.
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
